Photo of Newborn Calf Drinking Milk From a Hose Will Make You Rethink Dairy

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Thanks to the brave efforts of undercover investigators and whistleblowers, the harsh reality of industrialized animal agriculture aka factory farming has become more common knowledge. However, many people are still duped by the marketers over at Big Meat and Dairy and believe that dairy cows live on idyllic green pastures and enjoy being milked.

Those “happy cow” commercials fail to show the true conditions of dairy farms, which are dismal at best, with cows lined up in rows like commodities, floors typically flooded with urine and excrement, and painful milking machines that cause injuries and infections like mastitis. Dairy cows are forcibly impregnated by unnatural methods, only to have their babies ripped away from them at birth so the milk naturally produced for the babies can be given to humans. From there, the calves are either sent to hutches to be killed for veal or raised to become the next generation of dairy cows. And yes, when dairy cows stop producing enough milk, they are slaughtered.

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Unparalleled Suffering took to Facebook to share the bleak reality of dairy farms. The image shows a newborn baby calf, still covered in fluids from birth, being force-fed with a hose. What is in that hose? Milk with valuable colostrum in it, milk from another cow on the farm, not the calf’s own mother. Truly heartbreaking.

Cows are highly social and emotional beings who form strong bonds, and mothers typically cry out in anguish when their babies are taken from them, with some cows even managing to escape to chase down trucks transporting their babies.

If you consume dairy but can’t tolerate animal abuse and exploitation, then maybe it is time to ditch dairy from your life! And with the growing abundance of plant-based alternatives out there, it has never been easier to say goodbye to dairy. Check this out for some advice on transitioning away from dairy!

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Comments

Personally, I do not consume dairy and think it is inhumane and wished this type of farming could be made illegal. Thinking from a practical point & seeing that the people in the western world are not going to give up dairy overnight – can we not implement a new way of obtaining milk where the baby calf is allowed to stay with the mum and the milk is shared between the calf and the mother. The baby is then given a substitute for the remainder. Like with the egg industry -we didn\’t give up eating eggs, but we chose a more humane way to keep the chickens and felt \’better\’ about eating their eggs. Couldn\’t the dairy industry be revolutionised by new, forward-thinking farms that allow mother cows and their calves to stay together (for months) I know people that would be prepared to pay more for this new type of (more) humanely raised dairy/ milk products. I hope we can see more exposure and a big change to this awful industry. Humans are so misguided and greedy. My heart breaks for all the millions of mothers and their babies who are harmed & exploited in this way, each and every year.

As someone who is studying agriculture and lives in the farming community I can say that you cant judge this photo by any means. Unless there is sufficient data proving that this is the wrong thing to do then I extremely disagree with this post. You don\’t know the situation. The calf\’s mother might have died and it might need feeding urgently. It might be refusing to suck, or it might be sick and needs more nutrients and such to become strong because if it has an illness at birth and is not treated immediately then it can cause many issues and could possibly lead to death. so before judging the farmer for their actions, please understand the situation that they could be in!

But the end result is the same – most cows have miserable lives, cooped up in barns where they likely never get to see daylight and are constantly milked, then when they\’re deemed not fit to be milked anymore are slaughtered. Male calves are often killed immediately after birth as they are deemed to be useless because they don\’t produce milk and make no profit for the farmer. Those facts can\’t be sugar-coated and made to look acceptable.